


Imposter Sightseeing

by PlumTea



Series: Horror A La Carte [10]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Graphic Description of Corpses, M/M, Sengoku period
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-08 02:54:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16421012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlumTea/pseuds/PlumTea
Summary: Oikawa has married into a new household, but his husband doesn't touch him. It hardly seems his husband loves him at all. Oikawa may have some pretend freedoms in roaming the ground, but one rule holds firm: stay out of the study.





	Imposter Sightseeing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evercelle (amagnetism)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amagnetism/gifts).



> Day 5: Neon Demon vs Pastel Monsieur  
> a red chase through strobelights / thin lamplight on pitch black streets / ultraviolence in pink / **walls dripping in royal blue / a lightless room** / neon stitching across skin / mint in broad daylight / untainted white / a blood moon rising over the city / yellowed smoke and silver mirrors / don’t follow the glow through the fog  
> For [Iwaoi Horror Week!](https://iwaoi-horror-week.tumblr.com/)

Oikawa’s husband doesn’t touch him.

Oikawa was born with skin smoother than the finest lacquer and soft hair that curved with the breeze. At home, Oikawa’s servants never failed to mention how blessed he was to have been sculpted so beautifully. They could have just been buttering him up so he’d bring them along when he advanced in society, but he’s gotten enough admirers that he knows there’s some truth to it.

Iwaizumi Hajime asked to marry him, and Oikawa’s family had said yes without a second thought. How could they refuse the offer from a family ranked higher in the courts than them? What wasn’t there to want in safety and comfort? The land was in chaos, with every man that held an army in control rallying to claim a spot of land of his own. Gone were the days of the imperial court, replaced with madness that changed by the day. Who wouldn’t want to secure a position to a budding lord through marriage?

It was not the lord’s first marriage; far from it, he’d gone through brides faster than the trickling stream, all before they could bear him an heir. Sickness, accidents, the flash of blades from servants with dreams elsewhere, all had left him single. Perhaps taking a husband instead of a bride would change the fickle favor of the gods, perhaps not. Not even on their wedding day, small and nondescript but still Oikawa was adorned with the finest silks, did Iwaizumi offer any reason for his choice. 

It may seem a little odd, but Oikawa thought of his new husband to be particularly strange. Maybe it was how even with how sharp his dark looks were and how Oikawa made no secret of how he would melt under it, he seemed to be going through the motions of someone used to a menial task. He kept his eyes distant, locked away somewhere, and only brushing against Oikawa when necessary. Aside from that, it was work, duty, writing about war, work. But even the most dutiful of rulers at least save some passion for their wedding night.

But his husband never gives him any want. There are the firm touches on his shoulder when they move between rooms, sometimes a light brush of fingers during discussions in the wide rooms. In bed, with the slatted blinds shut, Oikawa sheds his robes and slips in, feeling the warmth of his husband’s still body and then nothing more. 

It comes first as a surprise and then confusion. Was he doing something wrong? 

 

* * *

 

A servant brushes his hair, running the abalone comb through Oikawa’s long hair. She tugs, but not too much that it hurts Oikawa’s scalp. He is supposed to sit there like a porcelain doll, letting himself be pampered, but Oikawa is no doll.

“You’re my servant, aren’t you?”

“Yes, my lord,” she replied.

“You will do what I say, won’t you?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“So if I die, will you follow me?”

He turns and looks into her face, and sees how even though she doesn’t say anything, her lips are trembling. “As your servant, it is my duty to follow you if you take your life.”

As soon as he turns back around, he can feel her fingers relax.

"Don't you think it's strange? That my husband dabbles in war so much but this house has never seen conflict?"

"I'm just a humble servant. I wouldn't know the affairs of the master."

He sighs, knowing that's true. “There were many wives here before, weren’t they?”

“Four, I believe.”

“Tell me about them. What did they look like?”

She hasn’t been there too long, so she just knows the stories passed down, and how these women became less women and more legends over the years. All of them were noblewomen from good households. The first wife was a strict one, who founded rules and made sure that they were followed. She cast such a long shadow that even before the servants could hear her voice, they knew she was coming. The second wife was on the plump side, with the fastest fingers for the shamisen. She came from all the way up north, and her eyes looked almost blue in the light. The third wife was sickly, the kind of woman that was an expert in making other people feel sorry for her. She was good at go, but her lungs wouldn’t last through a whole game. The fourth wife never complained, the model wife. She was so passive that people started to not believe it. 

And the fifth wife was no wife.

Oikawa looks into the hand mirror the servant gives him, at the slope of his cheekbones and the skin around his lips, and wonders what legends the people will make of him once he’s gone. 

“And did their servants go with them?”

Once again, the strokes slow. “Yes, my lord.” 

After she's dismissed, Oikawa runs a finger along the wooden panels of his room. He’s surprised the walls aren’t made from human bones. 

 

* * *

 

Oikawa puts the piece into winning position on the board, no contesting it. A servant looks the board over, contemplating her move, but when she sees there are no escapes, she merely bows her head. 

“Enough,” Oikawa says. Once the words are out of his mouth and eyes are on him, he can’t stop the words from tumbling out. “I’ve had enough of board games and sewing and painting and archery.”

His servants stare at him, pensive, and he stops there, because he knows they don’t have the power to change anything. Leaving the game board behind, he dismisses his servants and goes to find the person causing the problem.

Iwaizumi is sitting under candlelight, scrolls rolled out over a low table. A messenger had delivered them from the front last night, reporting which families had fallen in an ever changing battle of dominance. He studies the words quietly, brow pinched in exertion. “Is there a problem?” he asks without turning his head. 

“Yes. There is. I have nothing to do.”

“I’ve given you free reign of the property.”

Oikawa is grateful for that, at least. All are available to him, all but his husband’s locked study. “And I’ve done my exploring. Plenty of it.”

“There’s the archives.”

“I’d had enough of the archives.” He’s gone through all the most interesting readings, and even though he hasn’t gone through the shelves, he knows that day is coming soon. “I want something different.”

“A party, then. We can hire some of the miko from the nearby temple.”

“No.” He’s also grown bored of parties, when everyone sits stiffly and smiles politely. Not even him as the main attraction, dancing or playing the biwa, has lost its glimmer. 

Oikawa plops down by Iwaizumi’s side, careful not to disturb the square of ink on the table, but just enough that the slopes of their bodies hover close. “What do you do?”

“Write other lords. Weed out traitors.”

Iwaizumi Hajime is a good ruler. He isn’t lazy, vain, or stupid. His rice taxes are all manageable, and as rich as the household is, their residence isn’t overdone in fine furniture and silks. But he calls himself a lord, and never indulges in battle. How dull. 

What were Iwaizumi’s previous wives like? Did they get bored just as quickly and press their concerns into him without mercy? He wonders, for not many have a hunger to match Oikawa. “What were your wives like?”

“Good, until they died.”

“What were their names?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course. Right now, I don’t know of people, I know of only ‘wives’.”

The scroll crinkles as Iwaizumi shifts. “You don’t need to be jealous of the dead.”

“Alright.” Oikawa huffs. “Then tell me of your travels.”

“You want to travel with me? Don’t. Someone has to manage the household while I’m gone.”

“Fine then, let your husband rot.”

Iwaizumi turns to him then, a smirk on his lips that doesn’t reach his eyes. Still, Oikawa coils a small victory in his chest. “I’ll let you read some of my documents. Later.”

“Thank you.” Oikawa starts to bend forward, but Iwaizumi shies away. Defeated, he sighs and collects his robes. “Good night.”

 

* * *

 

He gathered Iwaizumi’s scrolls once his husband went to bed and slipped into one of the side rooms. With the slatted curtains sealing off light, he doesn’t have to worry about disturbing any of the servants. The guards patrolling the property rarely come into the living quarters, so Oikawa hasn’t bumped into anyone yet.

Halfway through the scrolls, he realizes that a lot of information is missing. Maybe the reports were sent from people reporting from different places, but there are a lot of gaps in the story. It’s dangerous to guess state affairs without having all the information, and Oikawa knows better than to try. Even if he thinks he might be able to fill in the blanks, one misstep could lead to disaster, and invite danger into their land and household.

Tiptoeing back to the study, he searches the table for anything missing, but all he finds don’t have anything to do with the writings he’s read. What, then? Where could it be? Literacy was a spotty thing between the servants, but the documents Oikawa was looking for isn’t meant to be read by a curious servant. It would be kept hidden. 

It comes to him in a flash: Iwaizumi’s study. 

He’s seen his husband go down the small steps into a room slightly below ground, but he’s not sure what’s down there. The tunnels to escape in case of attack were on the other side of the household. There’s no other place it could be.

Wrapping his robes tightly around him, Oikawa descends further into the viscera of the house. In the dark of night, shadows wrap around the halls, beat back momentarily by the candle in his hand. 

He slides the study door open, and absolute darkness falls around him. Overpowering incense billows out into the hall, and scratches Oikawa’s throat so badly that he nearly drops the candle. The glow of the candle comes back steadily, as Oikawa ventures deeper into the room, sleeve covering his nose.

Within the whirl of incense illuminated by thin candlelight comes rusted nails sticking up from a large slab of wood. Cloth hands in strips from it, but when he touches it, it’s far more leathery than any normal cloth. The wood beneath it has been stained brown. Next the light finds a bed of coals, no longer warm, but between the rocks lie charred bones. Jars of all sizes encircle a large wooden shrine, propping up countless sticks of incense. 

There was a law, he remembers, that a warrior can’t present a head to his lord that’s twisted in a grimace. To die angry, fearfully, shrieking, creates an ugly head. In a neat line on the shrine altar are the heads of four women, all smiling. Four women for four wives. Behind them, the rice paper encircling the shrine is splattered with old stains, ones that came from royal blood. 

“Didn’t I tell you not to go to my study?”

Oikawa sees his husband’s shadow first, and the glimmer of the short sword second. 

Blade meets blade. The handle of his knife thrums against his palm, but Oikawa grips it back into position. Away the candle falls, rolling by Iwaizumi’s feet. Never taking his gaze off Iwaizumi’s form, Oikawa’s knife carves a space between them. 

Iwaizumi takes a step back, eyes measuring the distance between them. Seeing the shine of the weapon that opposes him. “Since when can you wield a blade?”

“I’m a perfectly capable husband. You think I won’t defend myself?”

A slow smile gives a shadow to his lips. “None of the others did.”

“Then they’re all stupid, aren’t they?”

“And where were you hiding that thing?”

“You’d knew if you tried bedding me, my lord.”

But as many hours as Oikawa had toiled over his lessons with the sword, Iwaizumi had his training has well. Metal licks Oikawa’s cheek, but as Oikawa curls his arm back, Iwaizumi pushes himself forward, pinning Oikawa’s throat between the length of his arm and the wall.

Gasping, Oikawa’s nails dig into Iwaizumi’s robes, but they aren’t sharp enough to break fabric. He tries to gulp, but his saliva barely manages to slip down his throat. “You really think I’ll say anything?” he chokes out. 

“You won’t.” Iwaizumi presses his arm down further. “You won’t live to think about it.” His eyes hunger for the first time on Oikawa’s face, tracing the contours of it, only beautiful when accessorized with spilled blood. 

“Is that so?” The thick arm is a felled trunk on his throat, squeezing the air from Oikawa’s lungs bit by bit. “You might want to reconsider that.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because of the knife by your armpit.” Iwaizumi stiffens then, feeling the press of the knifepoint against his robes. “I prick you once, and you’ll bleed out so fast you won’t even get to run. Would you like to join your brides here?”

The arm is still on his neck, but Oikawa smiles, smiles.

Pressure falls away and Oikawa gasps, letting air fill him up once again. He stumbles, hand to his chest to feel the breaths coming in and out. All while his husband watches. 

Iwaizumi’s shadow lengthens, still a wall between him and the door. “And you’ll run?”

“Who’d run?” Oikawa finds his legs again, drawing up to his full height. He’s just a little taller than Iwaizumi, and he won’t be fooled by shadows. His hand finds the board of nails, and he wonders how many people had flailed their way towards death.  “I’ve made a fine life here for myself, thank you very much. Why did you kill them?”

“I told you. I weed out traitors.”

A swell rises in Oikawa’s chest, and he has to strangle the laughter that threatens to spill out. All along he thought his husband was dull, but it turns out he was the one with his eyes shut. He’d married a proper warlord all along. 

“I thought you incapable. I was wrong,” and Oikawa closes the space between them. Blood flavors the kiss metallic, and Oikawa feels fingers digging into the small of his back. They scrabble at each other, teeth and hands and nails, competing to see who’d consume the other first.

Oh, yes. Finally.

 

* * *

 

 

There never is a sixth marriage.

As the servants pass the stories along, they say the fifth marriage, the first husband, had a beautiful face and teeth as sharp as fangs. But the stories can never decide whether it was the master that devoured his husband, or the husband that devoured his lord.


End file.
